A few small vehicle tweaks
FlamingChickenWings
Netherlands Join Date: 2017-10-27 Member: 233751Members
Netherlands Join Date: 2017-10-27 Member: 233751Members
Hey people, over the course of playing this game I've stumbled across a few small things about the vehicles that, although small, I believe could improve the game if they were changed a little.
I'll list them here and explain what I mean for a bit.
1 • Seamoth torpedo HUD indicator
Since the Seamoth only has 4 upgrade slots, you're pretty dependent on each upgrade working properly to save your life in the nick of time. Trying to make that one life-saving shot to get away from some attacking creature only to get the message that you're out of torpedos sucks. Having a HUD Indicator showing how many torpedoes you have loaded up can at least let you estimate the situation a little better.
More importantly from an interesting gameplay perspective though, knowing how many torpedos you have can either stimulate a player to make that one daring cross through the deep dark, or give us more anxiety when we have to cross some place knowing we're defenseless. It's a slow, deeper anxiety that to me is one of the core experiences of subnautica.
2 • Cyclops camera control using number keys
This one is just a small control tweak, but I often end up on the wrong camera because I scroll the wrong direction. Small as it is, it takes me out of the experience a bit when my controls are not just an extension of me. It forces me shift part of my mind space to the mouse's scroll wheel, rather than staying entirely immersed in the game. I think that it would be a lot easier to remember which camera is which key than it is to remember which direction you have to scroll when i'm on any camera to get to a desired other one.
I'm not saying, get rid of the scrolling, but perhaps make it secondary to number keys.
3 • Cyclops slow turning cameras
Continuing on the previous two subjects, the Cyclops cameras are good to have, but they aways make me feel a bit too omniscient. Oftentimes you already have better vision through the cameras anyway, but on top of that they're 360 degrees at the flick of your mouse. It makes it a bit too easy to be aware of your surroundings, and it feels a bit gamey to have these mechanical systems move faster than sound through a liquid. To me, not being entirely aware of your surroundings is what makes Subnautica mysterious and fun. I believe that if the cameras moved slower, if they just slowly revealed to you whether or not there's some giant monster just outside the scope of your view, it could make the game a lot more anxiety inducing and fun, and get rid of that feeling of omniscience.
To top it off, it would give the game just a little more time to load up your surroundings, which it often seems to have trouble with.
4 • Cyclops engine rod
This one is a bit different from the other three, but the rod sticking out on the back end of the engine is a physics nightmare. If you touch this thing in the wrong way it will fling you out of your cyclops straight into another biome and file for custody over your children. It seems to me this could very easily be solved by making the rotating rod an animated texture, rather than an actual physics object.
I hope I explained myself properly and I'm curious to see what other people thing of these ideas.
I'll list them here and explain what I mean for a bit.
1 • Seamoth torpedo HUD indicator
Since the Seamoth only has 4 upgrade slots, you're pretty dependent on each upgrade working properly to save your life in the nick of time. Trying to make that one life-saving shot to get away from some attacking creature only to get the message that you're out of torpedos sucks. Having a HUD Indicator showing how many torpedoes you have loaded up can at least let you estimate the situation a little better.
More importantly from an interesting gameplay perspective though, knowing how many torpedos you have can either stimulate a player to make that one daring cross through the deep dark, or give us more anxiety when we have to cross some place knowing we're defenseless. It's a slow, deeper anxiety that to me is one of the core experiences of subnautica.
2 • Cyclops camera control using number keys
This one is just a small control tweak, but I often end up on the wrong camera because I scroll the wrong direction. Small as it is, it takes me out of the experience a bit when my controls are not just an extension of me. It forces me shift part of my mind space to the mouse's scroll wheel, rather than staying entirely immersed in the game. I think that it would be a lot easier to remember which camera is which key than it is to remember which direction you have to scroll when i'm on any camera to get to a desired other one.
I'm not saying, get rid of the scrolling, but perhaps make it secondary to number keys.
3 • Cyclops slow turning cameras
Continuing on the previous two subjects, the Cyclops cameras are good to have, but they aways make me feel a bit too omniscient. Oftentimes you already have better vision through the cameras anyway, but on top of that they're 360 degrees at the flick of your mouse. It makes it a bit too easy to be aware of your surroundings, and it feels a bit gamey to have these mechanical systems move faster than sound through a liquid. To me, not being entirely aware of your surroundings is what makes Subnautica mysterious and fun. I believe that if the cameras moved slower, if they just slowly revealed to you whether or not there's some giant monster just outside the scope of your view, it could make the game a lot more anxiety inducing and fun, and get rid of that feeling of omniscience.
To top it off, it would give the game just a little more time to load up your surroundings, which it often seems to have trouble with.
4 • Cyclops engine rod
This one is a bit different from the other three, but the rod sticking out on the back end of the engine is a physics nightmare. If you touch this thing in the wrong way it will fling you out of your cyclops straight into another biome and file for custody over your children. It seems to me this could very easily be solved by making the rotating rod an animated texture, rather than an actual physics object.
I hope I explained myself properly and I'm curious to see what other people thing of these ideas.
Comments
I agree, I just like using the torpedoes more. They're a bit more risky, which is more exciting to me.
That's certainly one option, and a good one if you ask me.
Another would be to do what any rational engineer would've done in the first place (and has always baffled me by its absence) - add a guard. Major moving equipment is almost universally protected by fencing, shielding, or other objects designed to keep those fragile "human operator" things from becoming "human mulch."
Either way...yeah, this needs fixing.
Add a transparent tube of 'glass' over it that is non-moving?